Puritan Political Theology in the Massachusetts Bay Colony: Divinely Ordained Popular Sovereignty in Church and Civil Government

Can Mert Kökerer, The University of Chicago

This paper argues that Puritans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony developed an idiosyncratic political theology which was predicated on an analogous conception of the Scriptures as the divine source of their religious order and the 1629 Charter as the quasi-divine source of their political order. These orders were hinged upon the relationship between the authority of the offices in church and civil government, and the liberties and privileges of the people who instituted specific individuals with authority. On the one hand, office-holders constituted the aristocratic component by virtue of their occupation of office authority which was divinely ordained. On the other hand, the people as the democratic component invested their governors with office authority through elections. In addition, the people’s liberties and privileges enabled them to be the sole judge of office-holders’ actions and decisions. Here, by referring to Bodin’s distinction between sovereignty and government, they defended their church and civil government against the accusations of “mere” or “pure” democracy propounded by their opponents in Old and New England. They argued that even though their interpretation of the divine ordination of popular sovereignty in their religious and political orders resulted in the supreme power of the people, this did not preclude the constitution and investment of ministers and magistrates with office authority. Since the sole sources of these institutional orders were the Scriptures and the Charter, the people’s supreme power could not translate into the abolishment of the authority of offices. Thus, the institutional order of Massachusetts was represented as a mixed government in which the people elected their rulers who were directly responsible and accountable to the ultimate, independent, and absolute power of judgment of the former. Puritans’ conception of the divine ordination of popular sovereignty meant that God’s people constituted the sole and absolute master within their orders.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 185. States, Authority, and Institutional Transformation in the Religious Field